A picture says a thousand words, so here is 4 thousand words, courtesy of the 2013 ITU Female age group Olympic distance triathlon champion. I am still in awe of how hard Parys trains and pushes herself, a true champion in every sense of the word and the nicest most encouraging person you could ever meet.
Being a world champ event this was clearly the race that both Parys and Em wanted to be in peak racing form for. Both had taken slightly different paths through the season and racing, Em had always listed this as the main race and was keen after missing out on the European tri champs earlier in the year due to illness. Parys had initially set the year as a focus on standard distance (Olympic distance) and after being crowned the European age group champ earlier in the year thought it was a good year to also target the world champs for the same distance. Due to work commitments she would be unable to attend the race and hence altered the plan and set about qualifying for Vegas.
As a coach it can be hard knowing you have 2 athletes up against each other in the same age group, you can’t have a favourite, you want them both to do as well as they possibly can.
Here is an extract of the Ful-on tri report regarding the race.
The Ironman 70.3 World Championships in Las Vegas is a truly brutal race, with a hilly bike course and over 9kms of climbing on the run. On a sizzling hot day which caused many of the worlds finest athletes to melt in the heat, Parys and Em braved the brutal conditions to deliver some inspirational performances. Congratulations to Em who mixed it with best with a 15th in age group.
However, there’s no doubt that the superstar of the day was Parys Edwards. She had a great swim, then absolutely nailed the tough hilly bike leg to lead her age group into T2. Once on the run course she just ran away from the competition to win her age group, whilst beating half of the world class Pro field, finishing 18th female overall and becoming the new age group World Champion!!!
Parys has said she’s utterly delighted with her result, “I had a firm race plan in mind and I stuck to it though at times I wondered if I was pushing it too hard and might not finish”, “I had no idea how I had done until I got to my phone and oh what a great moment that was! The support from home has been amazing and I thank God for giving me this ability and for placing me at such a great club (Ful-on Tri)!”
I think the results speak for themselves but great effort to qualify, well done on an impressive season of results for both Parys and Em and a superb race results to top it off.
True to form I have been slow in updating some great results over the last month.
Blackmores Running Festival Sydney, held in September with a brilliant spring day, I was on the start line with 15 half marathoners from CanToo Mac Uni Pod, we had be training together for over 14 weeks, for some this was their first half marathon and others were returning. A really great performance by everyone with 5 of the group going sub 2hrs and a couple of others getting very close, everyone had great races. For those that know this race this was a massive running day with distances from 4k, 9k, half marathon and marathon. undoubtedly the best running event in Sydney (in my opinion). It was also great to see many CanTooers out on the course who had been training in various groups over Sydney.
Emma, has been putting in solid race performances leading into Ironman 70.3 world champs (this race deserves a separate post). Results include
Excellent results particularly coming back from illness early in the season.
Parys, has continued her awesome form as she too prepared for Ironman 70.3 worldchamps. She is simply impressive the way that she always pulls out a superb performance every race.
The girl is just unstoppable!
Half Challenge Henley, to round out the list both Iain and Claire returned to training racing after Ironman France earlier in the season, great results to return to racing with 4th in age 4:37 and 8th in age 5:46 respectively.
It has been a busy a productive quarter with great performances, apologies if I missed any results.
Parys on the podium as England Olympic distance champ F35-39
Em, happy with her prizes I am not sure which lasted the longest!
Andrew Tong | Triathlon coaching 